Carly Kimiecik is a new faculty member in Family Science and Social Work, with a background in social work and public health, and is a Miami alum. Drawing on her experience in youth programming and her work in college athletics at Ohio State and Purdue University, she is a sport social worker who integrates sports and play-based positive youth development (PYD) to enhance health, development, and well-being among youth and college student-athletes. She collaborates with communities and athletic departments to support health and well-being while advancing the role of social workers in sports contexts. As the director of her research lab, The Sport, Play, and Resilience Collaborative (SPARC), she employs transdisciplinary and community-engaged approaches to examine socio-ecological contexts such as families, schools, and communities. Her work promotes strengths-based initiatives focused on health and well-being and aims to understand the lived experiences of young people within these settings and the role of sports and play. 

Katie is a Junior majoring in Social Work with a minor in Political Science. She is passionate about community-engagement, creative approaches to promoting well-being, and impactful research. Her recent experiences as an intern with the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, a research assistant with the School Based Center of Excellence, and a Truman Finalist have given her a strong foundation for public scholarship. Involved in many campus initiatives, from talking to prospective students as an EHS Ambassador to co-founding the Students in Sport Social Work Organization, she is enthusiastic about making a positive impact on Miami University and the greater Oxford community. In SPARC!, she collaborated on initiatives related to student-athlete holistic well-being, Recess for Champions, and general administration of the research lab. Outside of academics, Katie is an avid runner, completing 3 marathons (and counting!).

Sophie is a Junior pursuing a double major in Speech-Language Pathology and English Literature. She is passionate about the power of language in shaping human connection and is driven by a desire to ensure that every individual feels heard and understood. With her career goals of becoming a pediatric medical speech-language pathologist and future author, Sophie is especially interested in supporting language comprehension and expression in children. She currently coaches youth rock-climbing programs at the Miami University Rec Center, where she encourages children to build confidence and celebrate their accomplishments. On campus, Sophie serves as an executive board member of the National Student Speech-Language and Hearing Association and is additionally involved within her sorority, Phi Mu. Through her work in SPARC with Recess for Champions, she planned and organized the curriculum to accommodate the developmental differences with grades K-5 and aligned the activities with specific social-emotional life skills.